Busy Week

Ah the joys of having an old house - LOL.. Fortunately I have a great brother-in-law, Butch, and he has a great family Larry and Sonja! They are here visiting now. Before they came, Larry said, "what do you need fixed in the house?" Nelson told him we have no problems; I laughed and gave him a list of things! 

Last year when they were here, Sonja told me about macrame-ing old lawn chairs and offered to teach me how to do it. So I ordered macrame chord and I am off and running.. Here's the 1st and 2nd day of work completed pictured below. I ran out of chord today and have to order another half skein to finish the back - bummer! This chair is taller than most, so needed a little more. Think it will be wonderful when done and I am ready to do more. Have several old chairs to choose from. This one originally had cushions that are long gone and of course, no one makes this size cushions! Just waiting for the orders of more chord to arrive!

Vertical stringing

Seat Woven - Looking from top

First item the "guys" tackled together was the kitchen sink and the grey water drainage system. The sink had a small leak that several people have tried to fix to no avail. Wish I had a taken a picture of the sink plumbing before it was fixed; it was quite convoluted. Below is the new plumbing. In addition, the kitchen sink, dishwasher, and washing machine all empty into a grey water line rather than the septic system. We'd have a number of backups and "overflows" on the floor when a lot of water was drained from any of those items. I discovered that when a lot of water was drained, water backed up into the dishwasher and then would spill over to the floor. My solution was to check the dishwasher several times a day and drain it if it had water in it. That stopped the overflow situation. In addition you would hear gurgling in the drain a lot. This was all caused by numerous things, the dishwasher drain line was too low, the plumbing under the sink was a mess, and the drain line seems to have some clogs. So drain line for dishwasher moved to highest point we could get it, new plumbing (with under sink min-vent to keep water from leaving trap I think) and they dug up parts of the drain line, replaced some parts, snaked it as far as my snake would reach from multiple places, and also ran high velocity of water using the hose down the lines. Pictures of some of that below too.  There was also a broken elbow down by the "Garden of Eden" that has been replaced. This seem to be flowing smoothly and no gurgling noises anymore! And no leaks under the sink.  Hurrah.



Open part of drain (now has drain pipe there)

This was the dirtiest project!




Clean-out  now with a top on it

   The biggest project underway is to replace the old papered-panels on walls in the hallway and get rid of the old and very dirty wall to wall carpeting in hall and TV room. Lots of pictures of that will be in next post.

Did I mention this was an old house? Larry and Sonja like to do archaeological digs. They are loving this old house - ha ha. The carpet came up easily in hallway - haven't tackled the TV room yet. Looks good by the back door. Needs to be cleaned but no major issues. Whew.

Floor by side door

Floor by closet - cut out

Okay move up the hallway.. Right outside the hall closet There is a big surprise! There is a big square section that was replaced in the floor. Whoa that's weird! And oh the floor isn't level here! What in heaven's name?



Hall floor (near closet) from basement

"Let's look at it from the basement" says, Butch.  So we removed the insulation that was covering it up, and viola, here are the floorboards - but wait - there is no sub flooring here! And there is a metal support holding up on of the boards that surrounds the new boards. See it on the far 2 by 4? Oh joy.. The guys are working on this problem. Trying to get the floor to be even and be sure it is safely supported. We aren't going to tackle the break in continuity of the way the floor is laid.  Larry thinks perhaps many years ago there was some kind of a space heater in the basement and the heat came up through a grate in the floor. In summer in houses that had such a thing, the grate would be covered by an area/throw rug.  That may be the solution to this section for us for now too.  I have one cousin (Anna Rae) who thinks that might be right but can't remember for sure - but that might have been power of suggestion. She's the only one I've talked to who would have been in this house in the winter since she's always lived in this area.  Her mother and my father were cousins, so they came to visit Uncle Walter and cousin Elaine at this house many times.

You can see some of the in progress work on the walls in the picture, but before and after pictures will appear soon! Time for bed for me!